Senator Nampijinpa Price talks to Paul Murray on Paul Murray Live, Sky News

18 August 2025

Subjects: Becoming a grandmother; Newspoll results that Australians are more concerned about President Trump’s tariffs than the Chinese Communist Party’s military threat; Prime Minister Albanese not being honest about the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party’s hostility; Prime Minister Albanese’s failure to meet with President Trump; offer of Australian citizenship for Papua New Guineans who serve in the Australian Defence Force; recruitment problems in the Australian Defence Force.

PAUL MURRAY:
She joins us now to have a chat about all things to do with the world, including her portfolios in and around defence. But congratulations on becoming a grandmother. Baby Louis, the photo. Can we see the photo, please? That is a very happy lady. Tell me about this beautiful, beautiful addition to the family.

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:
Oh my goodness, he's an absolute blessing. He was born very early in the morning on the 9^th of August and my son Leiland and his partner Megan are very happy. I'm absolutely in love as a new grandmother, and Colin, he's still trying to figure out what he wants to be called yet. Our other boys are so in love with their little nephew. So yeah, it's been a beautiful few days, I guess.

PAUL MURRAY:
It's incredible when you're in that sort of early baby cocoon right where you're just sitting around it's with the family but the concept of saying your little one with their little one but also anytime anyone gets near a baby, right, how do you not get distracted by the little fingers, the little fingernails, the little cheeks that you go, oh this is just perfect, and you just  go, oh it's been three hours!

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:
Exactly, the baby fumes, they're seriously deadly, they are seriously addictive and we just all stand there staring at it, there's no need for a television anymore.

PAUL MURRAY:
Very good, very good. Congratulations to all of the family. That's spectacular. Welcome to the world, Louis. You've got one hell of a grandmother. It's going to be a fun time for you, mate. Fun time for you.

All right. Among other things, this Newspoll, right, that comes around, the opinion poll that has been able to see that there's more people in Australia worried about Trump tariffs than a China military threat. Now, one is obviously more immediate, but one is obviously very different in what the effect is going to be here. We're not talking about the cost of iPhones here, we're talking about a nation very different than ours that's made it pretty clear they don't care what we think. What do you think of this opinion poll, mate?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:
Yeah, look, I think it's really concerning and I think it's a huge failure on behalf of Prime Minister Albanese, he's not being honest with the Australian people to the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses to our country. I mean, he has played down their military aggression at every turn. You know, they're not a democratic country. We've seen how they have their Coast Guard has been harassing the Philippines, their Air Force has been intruding into Japanese airspace. We've seen how they've had live rounds, you know practice rounds off our own East Coast without even advising us of their conduct and yet our Prime Minister is not being honest. He's pandering to Xi Jinping.

He's failing to meet with, of course, Donald Trump. Donald Trump, while we may be concerned with the tariffs, with the way he's posing at the moment, but the bottom line is the US is one of our longest, most important allies, longest relationships. And they're a democratic nation. I mean, they are concerned, they want, they care about our sovereignty as a nation, whereas the Chinese Communist Party, not being a democratic, being part of a democratic nation, they would seek to take advantage of our nation. They don't care about our nation's sovereignty, or the sovereignty of other nations and Albanese is failing the Australian people in being completely dishonest about the threat that we face as a country and this is deeply concerning.

PAUL MURRAY:
Yeah, again, the alliance and reliance upon the interrelationship, security relationship between Australia and the United States has to be independent of whomever the President is at any one time, but because of the short-term political advantage of, you know, orange man bad, all of that nonsense. We've got to this scenario where the priority is obvious, right, because it results in Labor being able to win more seats, off to China for a week, while let's avoid the leader of the free world as much as possible.

Now I also want to talk about Papua New Guinea because apparently there's an idea here that if you are somebody who is a Papua New Guinean who joins the Australian Defence Force then that would be a way of becoming an Australian citizen. Is this a good idea?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:
Well, I mean, you know, we should always ensure that we have great relationships with our Pacific neighbours. You know, the Coalition, we started the Pacific Step Up when we were in government. And look, it's really noble of members of PNG, citizens of PNG to want to come and serve in our ranks.

But what this tells us is that we have a huge problem with recruitment if we're relying on smaller nations, our Pacific neighbours, to come and fill our ranks. I mean, that's where the problem is. That to me demonstrates red flags that this government isn't doing enough to recruit Australians. I mean, you know, in the last year, there's been about 7,000 new recruits, but that's out of 75,000 individuals who actually applied to join our Defence Force. So we've got a huge bureaucratic body. There's a hell of a lot of red tape. And there are capable Australians who would love to serve in our defence force, but as it stands, nothing's happening effectively enough to ensure that we enlist them.

And yeah, I don't think it's a good idea that we're looking to our smaller neighbours to turn their citizens effectively into our citizens. I mean, what are they supposed to do if they are under threat themselves? We're taking their good servicemen and women from their military and putting them into ours. It's just not a good idea, I don't believe.

PAUL MURRAY:
Well, exactly right. If it was a scenario where, and as you say, 75,000 people put up their hand and said, yep, I want to be part of this, right? Of that, only 7,000 end up actually enlisting. The process takes the best part of 270 days to take place. So there is a pipeline of a football stadium of people who want to join, but now we're looking at this other side way. It's fascinating.

Senator, I look forward to speaking to you again. Forgive me for spending a little time on the personal, but the personal always trumps the professional. We love you, mate. Congratulations.

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:
Thank you. See you.

PAUL MURRAY:
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, always great to talk to her, of course part of the Shadow Cabinet, part of Shadow Ministry I should say, as part of her responsibility when it comes to defence matters. A really great Australian, more with her every couple of weeks at the same time on a Monday night.